The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-11-02
THE SOUTH AND THE "LosT CAUSE"

| THE SOUTH AND THE "L0sT CAUSE"
The Southern newspapers that is some of
them, wish General Jackson had not so freely
! spoken his mind. The Memphis Avalanche,
| particularly, feels bad about the "slop over
| at Macon, and fears the worst result. But
even that paper dares not go further than to re-
| mark that the Macon demonstration inop
| perfume and impolitic. 1t is compelled to
| say:
THAT the presence of the feeble president
| of the Confederacy in the midst of vast numbers
| of ex- confederate soldiers should have aroused
| them to the highest pitch of excitement that
| they should have expressed In extravaganza
| ways their regard and sympathy for him, was
| perfectly natural To deny him any expression
| of love on the part of the old veterans of the
| South would be unjust and brutal"
| But it also says:
sWhen the story which we print in another
| column is read in the North, colored as it is
| by an unfriendIy hand, it will do to
| arouse the rapidly fading sectional spirit than
| all the speeches of Blaine, Sherman, Foraker,
Fairchild and Tuttle put together"
And it adds:
''The gentle reader need have no fear that,
notice of the enemy. They have them al
ready. AS soon as the programme was an
nounced they were keen enough to guess
what the outcome might be-the substitution
of rebel yelP for swan song-and they
had their emissaries in the field, mouths and
ears open, to catch every whisper"
That is all there is of regret General
jackson spoke not only his own sentiments, but
the sentiments of the great heart of the
South and it would have been all right if
only the echoes Of his traitorous speech had
not reached the n orth, where some of the
people still remember what it cost to over
come the rebellion of Jefferson Davis and his
co-conspirators and traitors. That is what
hurts; not what General jackson said, nor the
insults he heaped upon the cause for which
Abraham Lincoln stood and Abraham Lin
coin died. General jackson, and the Atlanta
Constitution speaking for him, can see moth
ing in what was said that should the
blood of the North to mount to the cheek in
hot indignation, after they take the trouble to
explain that no personal allusion was intended
by the sentence respecting Jefferson Davis
and Abraham Lincoln. This is the substance
of General Jackson's 'explanation", and here
is what the Atlanta Constitution says:
s"The Lincoln-Davis sentence of his speech
simply amounts to the statement that when
this triumph of local government. or home
rule is established over centralized power,
that Mr.. Davis, who stood for State sover-
eighty in the memorable conflict, will be vim
dictated over Mr.. Lincoln, who stood for CEN
tralized power. General jackson hastens to
say that his personal allusion purely in
cidental, and testifes to the high and earnest
admiration he has of Mr.. Lincoln's character
patriot, statesman and man."
Do the Atlanta Constitution and the
people of the South imagine, for
moment, that any personal insult or oppro-
blum that General Jackson could heap up
against the memory of Abraham Lincoln
would be worth the tribute of passing
thought Nothing can touch that immortal
hero and martyr further. Indignation goes
deeper and further than that, and the sig
nificance of General Jackson's speech, and of
the cheers with which it was greeted and the
Endorsement it receives from representative
Southern and newspapers, are much
deeper and broader. The spirit revealed by
the incident goes to the bottom of the whole
conflict between the government and the
Southern States, and touches every side of
that whole controversy. 1t unsettles all that
was supposed to be settled, and shows
that the spirit of rebellion to
the spirit of national unity is
still rife in the Southern heart and mind,
although, for obvious reasons, not so rampant
now as when it broke out in armed treason
in 1861. It is the South's defiance against
the arbitrament of war; it is the South's in
sistence that it was right and the North
wrong, and that the present Union and the
present government exist only by might and
not by right. How '.loyal' can men be to
the present order of things who hold such
opinions, and who hug such views as the
dearest memory in life to them? How loyal
can they be to the government when they
compare the contest between the federal gov
eminent and the Confederate States with the
contest between England and IrelandP That
is General Jackson's comparison, and here is
what the Atlanta Constitution says.
1.-The speech sifted down presents two points.
First, that the South did not go into war to
protect slavery but went in to defend the
principle of State sovereignty with the full
knowledge that slavery would be imperiled
even if the South were victorious in the war.
Second, that the principle of local govern
ment is still at war with tie principle of GEN.
tralized power. This struggle is not local to
America, but it is being fought wherever
human government has been erected. 1t
is being fought notably in England, where
Gladstone appeals for decentralization of
rouar apd tho tabliShmeDt of home rul0 in
Ireland"
How many people in the North believe that
the Southern States were the Ireland of
America, fighting for local freedom and self
government, and the federal government the
England of America, fighting to repress the